Santa Monica Public Library

Despite a great many environmentally conscious architects calling Santa Monica home, green building on a large scale hadn't occurred until the new library was constructed in 2006. Great care was taken in all of the building systems to use as little external energy as possible, no small feet for a building type that requires constant air quality for maintenance of books. The skin of the building is tilt-up concrete composed of fly ash and recycled glass. And unusual for a library, there is a lot of windows, allowing a lot of natural light without exposure to the books. The roof is designed as an impluvium, an ancient Roman system of draining rainwater to a cistern. The water is later used for all of the sites irrigation.